This invention relates to a computerized system for preparing and processing applications and premium quotations for insurance coverage, and for preparing and writing insurance contracts requested by clients.
Prior to the invention described below, insurance underwriting has been conducted primarily by manually reviewing and evaluating voluminous and often redundant client information and application forms. These forms are normally supplied by each insurance company to individual agents in the field and must be updated and/or replaced periodically in response to changes in individual company's standards or legislative enactments in the state in which the insured risk resides. Typically, each insurance transaction, application, or request for information requires a separate document to be filled out by the client and/or agent. Due to the general nature of these forms, much of the information entered by the client or the agent is redundant and serves only to contribute to the tremendous volume of paper which must be transmitted and reviewed in order to create an average insurance policy. When changes and supplements to information previously given by the client are necessary, even more forms and duplicate information are generated, which further contribute to the mass of information previously submitted. This is because, in order to transmit new information to the proper file, these change or supplement forms require the entry of client and/or risk information previously submitted on application forms already in the client's file.
This system as it now exists is inefficient and time consuming for the client, the agent and the underwriter. It is especially time consuming for the underwrieer because of the volumes of forms and information that must be reviewed for errors, non sequiturs, insufficient and/or incomplete information regarding the client or the risk to be insured. If any of these deficiencies are identified, the underwriter must draft and send correspondence to the agent or the client in order to correct, clarify or supplement the underwriter files. Once the files have been placed in proper order, the specific client and risk information are manually combined into a policy which then is submitted to the individual client for his review and approval.
The policy generated by this method typically is of a standard form to which individual paragraphs or pages must be added or deleted depending upon the specific risk to be nnsured and/or the individual client. In cases where the client requests supplemental coverage or wants to add further risks to his policy, riders, or in some cases entirely new policies, must be written and resubmitted to the client for approval. These policies tend to be bulky and confusing, since their format usually is not alterable. As a result, client and risk information are fitted to the policy rather than the policy being adapted to the client and to the risk.
The Insurance Institute for esearch (IIR) has proposed a common application form for each type of personal insurance, in an attempt to overcome some of the difficulties inherent in current insurance underwriting methods. These forms theoretically could be recorded in the memory system of an agent's personal computer so that they could be filled out electronically and the data sent to an insurance carrier in a "batch" environment. As used herein, the expression "batch" means a plurality of separate insurance transactions and/or information entered during a single operation of a terminal. The basic thrust of the IIR has been the creation of standardized application forms and records which can be used with any insurance carrier and which can be sent to a carrier in a batch input record. This proposal, however, still suffers from the same problems as those encountered previously. For example, the application forms of the IIR system require the entry of client and risk identification information each time an application form is filled out; and these application forms must still be edited and reviewed by the underwriter who must continue to conduct the aforementioned error analysis as well as the insufficient or incorrect data analysis mentioned above.